A sneak peek at eco-chic
Tour to highlight environmentally friendly homes

October 4, 2007
By Scott Stafford, Berkshire Eagle Staff
(413) 496-6240

WILLIAMSTOWN - Dr. William and Margot Moomaw recently completed building their dream retirement home - and it produces as much power as they use over the course of a year.

The Wells family, which just put an addition on its Williamstown house that dramatically increased its square footage, has cut down on its heating oil use by 32 gallons a year through the use of a solar-powered hot-water system.

Andre Rambaud runs a campground in Hancock - which includes his home and workshop - that is completely off the grid. His privately designed and installed hydroelectric generator provides all the power he needs, even in winter.

These three properties, along with 12 others peppered throughout Berkshire County, will be part of this year's Green Buildings Open House tour Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Other properties featured on the tour are Mass MoCA in North Adams, which uses photovoltaic panels that produce 1,500 kilowatts of power per week; a dome home designed and built by David Allard in Great Barrington that is heated strictly by the sun all year; and the 1804 West Stockbridge residence of the Gratz-Piasecki family. The latter home, which has been upgraded to be heated primarily by a wood-burning furnace, has a 2.4-kilowatt photovoltaic array for power and a tank of biodiesel to run the family's vehicles and oil furnace.

According to Nancy Nylen, co-director of Pittsfield tour sponsor Center for Ecological Technology, these 15 properties show important, achievable features and technology that are available today to help people start reducing their use of fossil fuel.

"People can see different levels of building techniques and energy-saving technologies that can be used alone or that can be used to work together," Nylen said.

Newest technology

The Moomaw house, for example, was built from the ground up using the newest technology and building materials to power and heat the home.

It is also a beautiful home in the forest, overlooking a field and a pond.

"A lot of care went into making sure it was green and cutting-edge, but a lot of care also went into the aesthetics," said Steve Haskins, owner of Haskins Construction, general contractor for the house. "They thought carefully about this from day one."

The 2,200-square-foot house includes a geothermal heat pump system that pumps hot water through the radiant heat pipes in the flooring and produces domestic hot water, a 7.3-kilowatt system of photovoltaic panels on the roof, and a window system that takes full advantage of the winter sun on the south side.

Special attention to insulation and airtight construction further reduces the need for heat. The site was designed so that the garage, work shed and even the surrounding land and vegetation shelter the home from the winter winds.

"Our goal was to build a house that will meet the needs of our current active lifestyle and still be suitable for our later years in retirement," wrote Moomaw in a description of his house.

He will talk about his home design, among other things, during a kickoff of the tour in a lecture titled "Living Deliberately in the 21st Century" tomorrow from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield, Nylen noted.

Brochures will be available there to guide visitors to the sites, listing specific hours each is open. The brochure also is available online at www.cetonline.org.

Over at the Wells house, a 678-square-foot addition increased the structure by 48 percent, giving three daughters their own rooms and adding a master bedroom and second bathroom. It also gave the family more kitchen space - and a concern that it would be using more hot water and burning more heating oil.

'That's significant'

So the builder, J. Craig Robertson, president of Heliocentrix Inc., installed an evacuated tube solar hot-water system on the south-facing roof, reducing their consumption of heating oil by 32 gallons per year. He also decreased the heat permeability of the walls in the addition and installed a radiant heat system in the new section of the kitchen floor.

"After adding to your space by 48 percent, and still reducing your oil use by 32 gallons, that's significant," Robertson noted.

Off the grid

In Hancock, Andre Rambaud set out to be self-sufficient, and in 1994, when his newly completed hydroelectric generator went online, he went off-grid. He's been off the grid ever since.

It was a bit confusing to the meter reader when he kept getting a zero-use reading when he read the meter, Rambaud said.

"It represents 10 years of work, a lot of research and travel," he said. "But now I'm confident I'll have it here for years without any problems."

Rambaud also uses a small windmill to keep backup batteries charged, solar panels for water heating, a hot-air panel to heat the garage and translucent roofing material to heat the woodshed. He takes advantage of south-facing windows to help keep the house warm in the winter.

"People can do many of these things themselves, just like I did," Rambaud said. "And they're going to need to in the future."